Democracy

In between cleaning ovens and bathrooms and sitting in the sunshine, we watched two excellent events at Hay - Lys Doucet, the BBC’s Chief International Correspondent, gave a fascinating, and entertaining, lecture about Making News Matter. She ranged far and wide around issues such as facts and fakes, the speed with which AI is developing and how it can ‘make the news’, how to keep people engaged with what is happening around the world and to care. 

Later Lyse Doucet appeared again, along with David Olusoga and Sarah Churchwell, to be in conversation with Bronwen Maddox under the heading of Democracy, Politics and Hope. They discussed what Democracy is and how it appears in different countries, how it depends on people participation, how it can be manipulated - the main message being that it is fragile and there is no room for complacency in any country. One of the ‘hopes’ they came up with was the way young people are making their voices heard, for example on Climate Change.

A lot to consider, but I think it underlines the need for conversation, debate, people listening to each other and working things out - a phrase that came out was ‘We don’t have opponents any more, we have enemies” - chilling!